Here they're just supposed to learn handling weapons and skis at the same time. They ski ahead in the tracks, and stop every 15 meters or so and fire 3-4 rounds at the targets some 150 meters ahead. Sounds easy, but try doing this in -29, with skis, ski poles etc, while at the same time keeping track of their comrades in the side lanes, thinking about security and so on. If you have never done it, there's an enormous potential for getting things wrong

A quintessentially Minnesota day this morning. Breakfast of eggs, coffee and biscuits. Then a trip to the Mall of America to see the ice castles. Hit the public park on the way home with the sledding gear and kids enjoyed sledding down the slopes. Hot cocoa and tea at home after.

Tomorrow expected 4-8" of new white stuff.

Any THREADster from back East that can comment re: the Nor'easter? How'd you fare?

On work this weekend. Flew up to the northern parts (close to my original home) to check out and evaluate one of the courses (Basic course in subarctic environments) that the college are giving in cooperation with one of the northern regiments for the Officers Training Cadet School.

Seems I'm in a funk, just as last time I was up here in January. Temp is, once again, -29C ... but again, blindingly beautiful.

Not only am I a regular nerd, but apparently I'm also a network geek. Someone on Reddit posted this picture with the explanation that it was the IP address they found "the world's most dangerous hacker" at in the show NCIS.

I got the joke.

Skynet?

OK... I see that i have to educate some of our thread brothers here...

The address depicted on the screen is not true Internet address - the address is private one and belonging to local network!

@ Dixie: On a totally unrelated note, did you know that some of the American heavy cruisers come equipped with Type 61 "Long Lance" torpedoes in scenario 2? Seems as though you can't keep 'em off / away from 'em.